Being in tune with your little one is important, but sometimes it can be hard to know what they want. Here are four ways your child is subconsciously asking for help…

Understanding your child and what they need is important to every parent, but children don’t express emotions the same way. A child’s brain only starts to fully develop once they are born, and by the age of 5, they have already developed behaviors that will remain with them into adulthood. Similar to a non-human animal, a child isn’t always able to tell you when they are having a problem, or if that problem needs to be given attention. Here are three simple things to look out for if you fear your child needs help.

Their Appearance Changes Overnight

Sometimes, when an adult goes through a tough time, you can see it by the way they are dressed and how they carry themselves. They may suddenly become untidy or gain a lot of weight. Children are similar in this way, but the changes or more prominent and they don’t seem to notice it themselves.

If you notice that your child used to wear bright clothes, but they now opt for baggy unflattering styles, there may be something more going on. They may cut their hair in crazy styles or change how they speak to everyone. All of these are easy to spot signs that the child may be looking for more support or attention.

They Are Too Passive

No one wants to deal with a noisy, badly behaved child, but sometimes that lack of fight and willingness to just obey everything an adult says can be a silent warning sign of abuse. Until the age of 8, a child’s brain is still gathering information and starting to learn right from wrong. Children who are exposed to emotional or physical neglect from a young age grow up believing that those actions are normal, and just, ‘how the world works’. This is detrimental to the child’s future mental wellbeing, and they may actively stop asking for help when they think adults have the right to control or hurt them because they are just children.

Underdeveloped Social Skills

If your child is unable to speak for themselves or express their emotions in social settings, this can be a sign of autism, or ASD. This disorder impacts their skill development in various ways, but some signs are more noticeable than others. Although this is a rare diagnosis and has very specific criteria, you may want to consider having them assessed with a Child Autism Test. You can learn more about child autism tests at Psymplicity. Psymplicity is a team of experienced medical secretaries that connect you with reliable psychiatric services around the UK to get your child the help they need.

Too Mature for Their Age

Sometimes, children are just more advanced than others, and sometimes they have been forced to grow up because they haven’t been allowed to just be children. Anxiety and stress can show up in a variety of ways in children, and it is most often due to situations where they can hear parents fight or are blatantly aware of the family’s financial problems. If a child seems to understand concepts that are too complex for their average age or are displaying behaviours like adult decision making, you need to look deeper.

Parents work hard to raise their children and keep them safe from harm, so they will provide food, a home, education, and living essentials, but children need much more than this. They think and react to situations very differently from adults, and sometimes they are silently screaming for help by misbehaving or becoming withdrawn.